Saddam's killing fields yield gruesome find

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Archaeologist Michael Trimble and US lawyer Greg Kehoe at a mass grave, believed to contain the bodies of Kurds, being excavated in northern Iraq.Photo: Reuters

Investigators have conducted their first exhumation of Iraq's
"killing fields", discovering hundreds of bodies that they hope
will help convict former dictator Saddam Hussein of crimes against
humanity.

They say that nine trenches in a dusty riverbed at the Hatra
site in northern Iraq contain at least 300 bodies, and possibly
thousands, including unborn babies and toddlers still clutching
toys. "It is my personal opinion that this is a killing field,"
said Greg Kehoe, a US lawyer appointed by the White House to work
with the Iraqi Special Tribunal. "Someone used this field on
significant occasions over time to take bodies up there, and to
take people up there and execute them," he said.

The victims are believed to be minority Kurds killed during
1987-88. One trench contains only women and children, apparently
killed by small arms. Another contains men, apparently killed by
automatic gunfire. Leaning over the jumble of corpses in their
bright purple and turquoise dresses, Mr Kehoe points out the
blindfolds still drawn around the women's skulls.

An American forensic team, including more than a dozen
archaeologists, anthropologists, and technicians, is midway through
the grisly process of transforming this mass grave into courtroom
evidence against Saddam and his henchmen that meets the strictest
international legal standards. It is the first of 10 sites that the
team plans to excavate.